How to Write Your Ads for the Search Engines, too

Without getting too technical, let's start with an little overview on how search engines work Think about it like this: Remember the old library card catalog, back before we had computers or the Internet? You would go to the library and search for a book through the category cards, either by title or by author of the book. When you found the book you were looking for, the card would have a number, and it would have information on which section and/or shelf of the library to find that particular book.

Think of the search engine in a similar way as the old library catalog system. Think of keywords as the way you found the book: “title or author.” An algorithm is similar to the Dewey Decimal System number (something the general population didn't understand and quite honestly, it didn't matter). Search Results are like the shelf where you would find the book. The webpage or website is like the book itself.
 

Unlike the old card systems that limited you to searching by title or author, the search engines allow innumerable ways to search. Each different search engine has unique algorithms comprised of various factors, which ranks the significance and importance of the keywords. Basically, these factors determine which web pages to display for a particular search. While the search engines purposefully do not reveal the factors which comprise their ranking algorithm, they do acknowledge that an extremely important part of the ranking formula is based on keywords from a given webpage.
 

 

NEVER copy anyone else's wording. Imitation is the highest form of flattery — so the other owner that has a great description won't care if you copy their property description, right? Maybe not; however, the search engines do care! If Google looks at the other owner's ad, then at your ad, and notes all the similarities, your property might not show in the search results. (Search engines may give preference to the original version of a webpage).

Be specific in your headline. Your headline, or property title, is one of the most important pieces of your listing. The information you enter for your headline is used on the webpage, in the links to the webpage and in meta data about your webpage. Since these pieces are all important to search engines, it's important to have different headlines on all of your listings/websites and to make sure you choose words people are using to find properties like yours.
 

It's beneficial if you use specific keywords or phrases in your title. For example, a general phrase like “Gulf Shores condo rental” yields 458,000 results on Google. Often when a renter sees an overwhelming number of results, they type in more keywords to narrow the search. A more specific search phrase like “Gulf Shores condo rental HDTV allows dogs” produces a much more manageable 17,100 results. Or how about this one? “Gulf Shores 2 bedroom condo rental HDTV allows dogs” which returns 778 search results.
 

Use different wording on each listing website. It's extremely important for you to have different wording on all the different websites that you use to advertise your second home (such as VRBO.com, VacationRentals.com, HomeAway.com, or even your personal websites). The reason is Google (among other search engines) has strict policies against duplicate content. Google will look at words on your listing(s) and personal website. If the wording is exactly the same on two (or more) webpages, Google assumes the pages are exactly the same. The downside for you is it will only surface one of your listings in the search results — as opposed to all of them. This means you won't be maximizing the full benefit of having listings on multiple websites.

Now, you might be wondering why you still receive inquiries from all the different websites. This is because the majority of the renters who come to websites like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, and VacationRentals.com find your property via your respective homepage or the landing page for your area.

Note: If you list your property on GreatRentals, A1Vacations and CyberRentals in addition to HomeAway, you do not have to write a different description for each of these sites.

Provide complete location information. Think for a moment about the factors you consider when booking a property. Does "specific location" come to mind? It's important to include (at the very least) the distance of your property from local attractions, landmarks, and highways. The more information you provide, such as information about nearby beaches, ski resorts, golf courses, shopping, etc., the greater the possibility a search engine will return your property page(s) for a particular search term.

For example, if your property is located near popular attractions such as Walt Disney World, Six Flags, or Dollywood, it's important that you mention those attractions in your ads, including your exact proximity to the attractions (e.g. “30 minutes from Walt Disney World”). Here's another example: type into Google “vacation rentals near outlet mall” and it will yield over 850,000 results. However, if you key in “vacation rentals near Silver Sands outlet mall in Destin, Florida,” it brings the number down to around 55,000 results. You can get even more specific, and search “condo rentals near Silver Sands outlet mall in Destin, Florida.” Then the results go down to around 38,000. So in this example, if you have a property in Destin, Florida, you should have “Silver Sands Outlet Mall” written somewhere in your ads.

Describe your home and amenities in detail. It's important to fully describe every aspect of your property. You never know what keywords people will use when searching. For instance, if I put into Google, “condo rental in Panama City Beach Egyptian cotton sheets,” the results would surface individual properties. If your property fits that description, then your ad would show up in the search results!

Think about what your renters repeatedly ask when they email or call you. Include the answers in your description, if possible. For instance, in some locations, a beachfront locale is extremely important to some renters. If you are lucky enough to have a beachfront property, make sure renters know by using “beachfront” in the title and/or description.

Write descriptive captions for your photos. Believe it or not, search engines will search on the photo captions from your ads. Go ahead, try it! Put your photo caption into a search engine and see if your property comes up. If your ad does not come up, chances are your photo caption is too vague. For example, if your caption reads “Great Views from the balcony, ” (which on Google has over 6 million search results), you may consider changing it to something more keyword-rich, such as “Watch the Dolphins Jump from our Large Balcony.” The second phrase yields a mere 9000 results (and many are vacation rental listings). Furthermore, the image search functions on Google and Yahoo! use the text on the page to determine a photo's relevance to a query.

Use all of the description fields. The various description fields on vacation rental websites give you the opportunity to sprinkle keywords and keyword phrases throughout your ads. The more keyword-rich text that you have on a page, the more chances you have to rank higher in search results.

Additional opportunities. Many vacation areas have events, festivals, and tournaments or are popular destinations for holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, etc. If your property is available for a holiday or festival and you're looking to rent it in the weeks leading up to the festival or holiday, make sure you mention the name of the festival or holiday in your description and headline. If your area hosts multiple annual festivals, this will help potential renters find your property (e.g. include a few sentences about the festival, the time of year it occurs, and how far your property is from the festival).

Cast a large net or a smaller one? Should you try to sprinkle in words that hit a vast majority of potential renters, or just use those that fit your property best? It is nearly impossible for you, a single property owner, to optimize your advertisement for a very general search term such as “vacation rental.” Frankly, that's what you pay websites like VacationRentals.com, HomeAway.com, and VRBO.com to do — optimize your ads to the largest group of potential renters. Within each page, these sites embed keywords into the template that your property utilizes (templates are pages that provide the formatting for your listing). It's your job to make sure that you describe your property to a granular level. So it's best if you sprinkle your ads with the information that is specifically relevant to your property's location, amenities and top features.

Update often. It is very important that you update your listing often. At a bare minimum, we strongly encourage you to update your property headline. While it is good practice to keep up-to-date information on your advertisements, some search engines even reward you for it (some search engine algorithms weigh newer information higher in their search results).

 

All of this may seem a bit overwhelming, so let's just summarize what you should do right now.
 

 

© Copyright HomeAway, Inc. 2007

Updated: September 18, 2009